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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

In order to get out the message and for as long as the uprising in Iran is in progress, we will continue to post translations of relevant articles published in Elsevier, written by Dutch-Iranian refugee and Leiden University lecturer, Afshin Ellian. They are collected in a dedicated file as specified at the bottom of each post.

Reminding you of a post published yesterday by blogger NiteOwl on "Anonymous Iran" who has been able to piece events of the last few days together on the basis of tweets.

Nega Agha Soltan, who died before the eyes of millions of people, was the first symbol of the Iranian resistance against the Islamic regime. She is now accompanied by a new symbol of innocence: nineteen year old Sohrab Arabi.

An innocent young man who went with the Persian, green flow. One morning he said goodbye to his mother. Then he took to the streets to fight for the Republican ideal of liberty. It unavoidably clashed with the Islamic Caliphate. He never returned home.

His mother went to Ewin Prison. She was told her son had been arrested. But last Saturday (July 11) - almost one month later - she learned from Mortazawi, the Officer of Justice of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran - that her son may be dead. As stated, Mortazawi earlier indicated Sohrab had been arrested.She was sent to the Security Department where she was shown the photos of some sixty corpses. Her son was in one of those pictures. Yes, the assassinated Sohrab was one of them.

Like Neda, Sohrab had been hit by a bullet close to the heart. We don't know if perhaps he had died of torture and was shot afterwards. Why had Mortazawi declared earlier that Sohrab had been arrested? It's also possible that - like Neda - he was shot in the street in broad daylight.

The family was allowed to bury him in Tehran. But political demonstrations were forbidden. To make sure, officials of the Security Services attended the funeral. It is truly heart-wrenching to hear the mother wail at the burial.

Mourners carried this texts:

The boy is this picture is missing. His mother is crying day and night.

The boy in this picture has huge eyes and a clenched fist forever.

Standing on the tarmac, he screams. His bossom is a garden of strange tulips.

The boy in this picture gave his life on Wishing Street [sic].

I'm going to tell his mother: I am the boy in that picture.

How many protesters are being killed in Iran by the sons of Allah? The exact figure is unknown. Over five thousand! How many injured? Several thousand.

Will it withhold the people from demonstrating? No. Last week, July 9 thousands of people again hit the streets of Tehran, Tabriz, Shiraz, Isfahann, Ardebil, Kurdistan Mas'had and other cities to commemorate the 1999 student uprising. These demonstrations are well documented. How long will they keep it up? No one knows.

But Sohrab's mum? She embraced her child, the child of the green wave of freedom. She embraced Sohrab's grave. Oh, it is unbearable if your innocent child is murdered by the state. A state, made up of criminal beardmen. Guys, this is unbearable.

We must also remember all the other mothers of missing and murdered children. We must not forget they're fighting for and are being killed for the values we in the West think of as normality. But the mother of Framarz, my uncle's son, was not even allowed to bury her child. My uncle died two days before the elections. He had to mourn his missing child in silence. Now all of Iran is mourning her missing children.